Brewery

BREWING FACILITIES

FITGER’S COMPLEX | DULUTH, MINN.

Fitger’s Brewhouse produces more than 1400 barrels of award winning ales and lagers from our 10-barrel Duluth, Minnesota brewpub. Our brewery is operated by a small crew of hardworking brewers who all have the passion for using small batch, hand crafted brewing techniques . Our catalog boasts over 100 different recipes of unfiltered ales and lagers brewed from the highest-quality ingredients.

THE BREW CREW

HEAD BREWER

Alex "Coke" Chocholousek, our Head Brewer, has a history of home brewing and a passion for innovation. He built his brewing career with boots on brewery experience, and some formal education. He joined our team with a fun, upbeat attitude and a drive to move us ahead.

BREWERY TOURS

Miles of Styles

There are thousands of beer styles around the world, and Fitger’s Brewhouse has brewed a whole spectrum over the years. But there are a few broad categories we return to time and time again. Here’s a brief introduction to some of our favorites.

North Shore Style Pale Ale

Hop forward, dry finishing, and brewed with Lake Superior water, this style was originally pioneered by master brewer Dave Hoops and is unique to the Twin Ports brewing scene.

Examples: Starfire Pale Ale, Duluth Pale Ale Minnesota Nice

IPA

India Pale Ales were brewed for British soldiers stationed in India, where high alcohol and a good dose of hops protected them from breaking down. Nowadays, the wide variety of hops available can give these beers flavors frompine and grapefruit to black pepper to lemon to blueberry and peach.

Examples: Superior Trail IPA, Hoppelujah, The Mayor, El Niño

Stout

Dark, malty, and often poured on nitrogen for a super-creamy mouthfeel, stoutshave plenty of backbone.

Examples: Big Boat Oatmeal Stout, Tugboat Irish Stout

Belgian Styles

In the pantheon of great beer countries, Belgium is right up there with Germany. This is the country that brought us powerful dubbels and tripels, crisp and spicy saisons, and sour lambics.

German Wheats

The original Bavarian Reinheitsgebot held that beer could only have three ingredients: barley, hops, and water. Wheat beers are a delicious way to be an outlaw. From yeasty hefeweizens to high-gravity weizenbocks, this style has plenty of variety.

Examples: French River Hefeweizen, Dread Pirate Dunkelweizen, Lester River Hefeweizen

German Lagers

Bottom fermented and conditioned at low temperatures, lagers have mild, clean flavors. Pilseners, bocks, Oktoberfest-style Märzen beers, altbier and more are examples of this type of beer.

Fruit Beers

Fruit can add complexity, depth, and sweetness, depending on how it’s used. From infusing orange peel into cloudy wheat beer to adding blueberries to our winter porter, we use fruit to add another dimension to beer.

Sour Beers

IBU means International Bittering Units, and a beer can have anywhere from 0 to 120.

0–10 Don’t want any bitterness? Well, then, you’d better be ok with sour! Styles with a super-low IBU include fruity lambics, sour geuzes, and the tart and refreshing Berliner weisse.

10–20 With rare exceptions like those mentioned above, most beers will have at least a few IBUs. This category includes ultra-mild American lagers, Scottish heavy ales, witbier, and Flanders red ales.

20–40 Most beers fall into this range. From light pilsners, on through porters and brown ales, and into sweet stouts and oatmeal stouts, this is the norm. Saison, Belgian ales, and even rauchbier all typically fall between 20 and 40 IBUs.

40–70 Now it starts to get intense. Beers with a lot of bitterness tend to also be high in alcohol content and flavor, but sometimes malt wins the day (American stout) and sometimes it’s all hops (American IPA, English IPA). Traditional English barleywines fall in this category.

70+ This is where you sip! The only beers this bitter are American barleywines, imperial IPAs, and some Russian imperial stouts. Drink these beers with care.

(Data from the Beer Judge Certification Program)

ABV: Alcohol By Volume

ABV is a simple percentage of alcohol by volume—tap water is 0% ABV, pure ethanol (the alcohol in beer) is 100% ABV, and your favorite beer is somewhere in between.

Below 0.5% Beers with an ABV of 0.5% or less are legally considered non-alcoholic. The only drink with less than 0.5% ABV brewed at Fitger’s is our Driftwood Draft Root Beer (which has 0.0% ABV!)

2–4% Lite American beers like Bud Light do not have much alcohol, but there are more complex lower alcohol beers as well. Standard/ordinary bitters, Scottish light ale, Southern English brown ale, and Berliner weisse all typically fall in this range.

4–6% This is the most common range, especially for German beers. Weizens, pilseners, Oktoberfest/märzen, and kölsch fall here, as does Munich helles, North German altbier, and rauchbier. American amber and brown ales fall here, as do sweet stouts, Belgian pale ales, and more.

6–8% Make sure you have a cab on speed dial. These stronger beers include traditional bocks, English and American IPAs, biere de garde, and Belgian dubbels.

8–12% This is getting into wine territory (wines are typically 8–14%). Barleywines, Russian imperial stouts, Belgian strong ales, and imperial IPAs are definitely made for sipping, not gulping.

Beyond 12% A few adventurous souls have pushed beyond normal boundaries into very high ABV beers. The current record is 65% ABV (Brewmeister Armagdddon) which is significantly stronger than most spirits.

Want proof? In the US, “proof” is determined by doubling the ABV. It’s usually used for spirits (Russian vodkas are 80 proof or 40% ABV). If you’re drinking a 10 ounce glass of beer with a 12% ABV, that’s the same amount of alcohol as two shots of vodka. Drink responsibly!